Leading freight forwarder EFL recently received top honours for its sustainable warehousing design with accreditation as Sri Lanka’s first LEED Gold warehousing facility. With a vision for long term sustainability, EFL designed its state of the art Colombo warehouse in compliance with LEED Gold standards and received the nod from the accrediting body recently.

LEED, more formally known as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the leading benchmark in green building that recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices. LEED-certified buildings are recognizable by their resource efficiency alongside minimal usage of water and energy. They also reduce greenhouse gas emissions and as an added benefit, minimize cost.

The 100,000 square foot warehousing facility is energy efficient and sustainable with minimal impact on its surroundings. The state of the art building handles over 400 CBM of goods a day and manages a turnaround of 25 trucks on average to support the exports of some of the country’s largest apparel manufacturers. The challenge was in ensuring that the 500+ staff based at this facility were also accommodated comfortably in a modern working space, says Shiran Dias, General Manager - HR & Administration of EFL. “We were very determined to take the right steps from the design stage and brought in the best consultants, gradually adding more areas aiming for the highest possible certification.”

During the certification process the facility was awarded 73 points in the USGBC LEED rating system, thus fulfilling the requirement for a Gold certification. The building scored very well on all the categories under consideration including Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, and Innovation in Design. The building was commended in particular for scoring highly in the Energy and Water categories which is owing to a highly efficient VRV cooling system and a lighting system that maximizes the utilization of natural light.

In addition, a solar PV installation on the roof of the building is the biggest of its kind in Colombo city. The building was awarded maximum points for energy efficiency as it saves more than 50% energy in comparison to the energy use of a conventional building. The solar panels supply nearly the entire energy requirement of the building.

Carbon Solutionz, a green building design consultancy based in Colombo facilitated the design process. Backed by a team of local and international consultants, Carbon Solutionz helps organizations reduce energy consumption and build sustainable practices. Aazim Nafaiz, Director Carbon Solutionz praised EFL’s commitment to making a success of this mammoth undertaking.

Commenting on the accolade EFL Sri Lanka Managing Director Saif Yusoof said, “Our warehouses aren’t seen as just the infrastructure that services our global operations. We were very keen on making the space as conducive as possible to meet the needs of our teams based here and this recognition has only strengthened our resolve to ensure that more of our spaces are built this way.”

EFL (Expo Freight) is a leading provider of supply chain solutions across 20 countries and over 55 cities. Founded in 1982, EFL is headquartered in Sri Lanka and is ranked among the top five forwarders in the Indian Subcontinent and is recognised as an expert in fashion logistics.